Nokia transitions Symbian source to non-open license (ars technica) [LWN.net]

Nokia transitions Symbian source to non-open license (ars technica)

Posted Apr 12, 2011 9:00 UTC (Tue) by njwhite (subscriber, #51848)
Parent article: Nokia transitions Symbian source to non-open license (ars technica)

(from the article)
> Nokia says that Symbian is no longer open source, just "open for
> business." The definition of "open" in the mobile space is apparently
> completely different than it is everywhere else in the software industry.

Apologies for flogging a dead horse, but this illustrates nicely the
fallacy of saying that 'open' is less ambiguous than 'free'. By moving
the dialogue away from rights, it doesn't encompass the central feature of
FOSS, that not only is source code available, but it's legal to use it
or change it as you see fit (pretty much).

The term 'open' has been used a lot in the computer industry for a very
long time (long before the term 'open source' was born), and has always
been vague and meant vastly diverse things. Two Bits has a nice chapter
on this: http://twobits.net/discuss/chapter5

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Nokia transitions Symbian source to non-open license (ars technica)

Posted Apr 12, 2011 21:00 UTC (Tue) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]

Sorry, if Nokia (or the cited article) gets the term "open" all messed up, either accidentally or on purpose, doesn't make the term "open source" itself ambiguous in any way. The term "free" is as ambiguouos (or more), in any case.

Nokia transitions Symbian source to non-open license (ars technica)

Posted Apr 13, 2011 8:17 UTC (Wed) by njwhite (subscriber, #51848) [Link]

> if Nokia (or the cited article) gets the term "open" all messed up,
> either accidentally or on purpose, doesn't make the term "open source"
> itself ambiguous in any way

I somewhat disagree. One of the benefits of the term "open source" is that
people are supposed to already have a reasonable idea of what "open" means
which is close to what we mean by it. I was pointing to this as an example
showing that it's a more vague term than we tend to believe.

> The term "free" is as ambiguous (or more), in any case.

True, ish, certainly. But I think once you mention freedom, you're closer
to people understanding you than when you mention openness.